Roswell and Unsolved Mysteries

Estimated Map Location of Debris Field : Map Link

This episode opened the second season of Unsolved Mysteries way back in September of 1989.

Unsolved Mysteries picked up the story with a heavy slant towards the words of various UFO researchers on the case. Kevin Randle and Stanton Friedman appear and it even introduces us to the story of aliens at another crash site.

For those who want to (re)acquaint themselves, here is the original episode that first aired September 20, 1989 :


Roswell segment start around 19m 15s into the show.

An update aired on a September 18, 1994 episode. There are later episodes hosted by Dennis Farina showing the same segments.

For those unable or not wanting to view the video, then show notes are provided below.

Unsolved Mysteries Show Notes

July 2nd 1947, a violent electric storm hits Roswell, New Mexico [Note: This is not backed up by historical weather data which has no record that there was any storm in early July].

Rancher Mac Brazel waited out the storm indoors when he heard an explosion. The next morning, Mac found a debris field of an unknown object, broken beyond identification. The debris field was three-quarter of a mile long and 200 feet in width. Scattered along the field were pieces of plastic-like metal as thin as newspaper with strange properties and strong flexible beams.

Mac went to see Floyd and Loretta Proctor who lived about ten miles away. He told them about the debris field and brought one of the pieces with him. They tried cutting and burning it, it remained unaffected. The Proctors urged Mac to go to the authorities. He went to the sheriff the following Monday who, in turn, informed the military.

Mac led two army intelligence officers back to the crash site. One being Major Jesse Marcel (the narrator states he had been an experienced combat pilot, but this was not the case). Marcel was unable to identify the debris. A clip of Marcel has him describing fragments strewn across an area that was 3/4 mile long and several hundred yards wide. Material he tried to burn, bend, and even hit it with a sledgehammer, but none of that worked. He was certain that it was not a weather balloon or any kind of aircraft he knew.



Late on the night of July 7, Marcel drove back to Roswell with the material found on the ranch. He stopped at home to show his family what he had found. His son Jesse Marcel Jr. saw and handled some of the debris. He found what looked like a beam with hieroglyphics in a geometric configuration. It had a violet-type color and was embossed as part of the metal itself. The Marcels were convinced that it was not of Earthly origin.

Marcel Sr. brought the material to the Roswell base next morning, where it is believed that the debris was flown on to Wright Field near Dayton, Ohio. Along the way, it apparently stopped at Carswell Air Base in Fort Worth, Texas.
That same morning, Colonel William Blanchard, the commanding officer, went public with the story. Colonel Blanchard ordered public information officer Walter Haut to issue a press release, telling the country that the Army had found a flying disk.

The many rumours regarding the flying disk became a reality yesterday when the intelligence office of the 509th Bomb Squadron was fortunate enough to gain possession of a disk through the cooperation of a local rancher….

The story was quickly picked up by the national media.

Barney Barnett, the Craft and Bodies

That same day, Barney Barnett, an engineer for the Soil Conservation Service, made an astonishing discovery while driving near Socorro. He found an oval-shaped spaceship that had crashed and broken open. Four deceased beings lay on the ground near the craft. Their heads looked larger than normal and they wore strange spacesuits. At that same time, a group of archaeology students arrived and saw the bodies and craft.

A military patrol was rapidly on the scene. They told Barney and the students to leave and not reveal the story to anybody. Barney kept quiet for years only telling his friend Vern Maltais. None of the archaeology students have ever been found. Barney died in 1969, so the story is second hand. Although the circumstantial evidence found makes many believe that the story is credible.

On July 8, 1947, the story of the discovery of a UFO in Roswell hit the newsstands worldwide. According to some investigators, that same day, a cargo plane carrying the debris arrived at an airbase in Fort Worth, Texas.
The army allegedly received information of another crash site and bodies had been found. Fort Worth Brigadier General Roger Rainey's office issued a new press release soon after, saying that the wreckage was not a UFO, but instead a US Army weather balloon. Jesse Marcel Jr. claimed that his father was certain that the wreckage was not from a weather balloon; however, he had to keep that information to himself at the time due for security reasons.

Some reports said that Mac Brazel was held at the Roswell base until the new cover story was put out. By the time he returned to his ranch, all of the debris had been taken to Wright Field in Dayton, Ohio. Investigators believe that some of the bodies and debris were taken to other places after arriving in Ohio, but that others are still there. However, there was only circumstantial evidence to say that something other than a weather balloon crashed into the field in Roswell until thirty years later.

UFO researchers found a document that allegedly proves that the Roswell incident actually happened. In 1984, a top-secret document, known as the "MJ12 memo", was anonymously sent to a researcher. it read:

..On 07 July, 1947, a secret operation was begun to assure the recovery of the wreckage...Aerial reconnaissance discovered that four small, human like beings had apparently ejected from the craft...About two miles east of the wreckage site. All four were dead...Civilian and military witnesses in the area were debriefed, and news reporters were given the effective cover story that the object had been a misguided weather balloon…

Source

Actual MJ12 Memo (the FBI later declared this as a hoax)

The government refused to comment on the MJ12 memo.[The FBI later investigated and declared the MJ12 document bogus].

>>>continues>>>

Apart from Barney Barnett, only one man claims to have seen the alien bodies, Oliver "Pappy" Henderson. His wife Sappho claims that he never told anything that he wasn't supposed to, and he did not tell anything about what he had seen until thirty-four years later, in 1981.

Oliver was the pilot who flew the first pieces of wreckage out of Roswell, and he told Sappho that despite the military denials, the incident actually happened. He told her that the bodies were smaller than humans, the heads and eyes were much larger, and the clothing was of strange material that he had never seen before. It has been more than sixty years since the object apparently crashed in Roswell, but to this day, nobody is certain what the object truly was or where it came from…

Beyond Unsolved Mysteries

This case is the Holy Grail of American ufology. The pillar on which much of it stands and so must remain preserved as a story of alien visitation. The product of over a decade of rebooting a UFO case that had seemingly died in July 1947. There were only brief mentions in UFO books and magazines in the 1950s and 1960s. There was never even a whisper of dead alien bodies recovered.

In fact, even in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when Jesse Marcel became the star witness, there was still no mention of aliens. Marcel only ever claimed to have seen strange material.

This was one of the first widespread mainstream TV shows that took a more conspiratorial look at the Roswell case.

The original Unsolved Mysteries segment was later supplemented with an interview with Glenn Dennis. He was a young mortician in Roswell during 1947. He told a fantastic story of being asked to supply child size coffins/caskets to the Roswell AAF base and that a nurse he knew who worked there had seen alien bodies. A story that eventually didn’t hold up because the nurse ever existed.

However, that was yet to be revealed. Dennis along with Walter Haut had already set up the Roswell UFO Museum in September 1991. So perhaps had a reason to be telling tall tales?

In July of 1994 the Office of the Secretary of the Air Force concluded an exhaustive search for records in response to a General Accounting Office (GAO) inquiry into Roswell. Producing

The Roswell Report: Fact versus Fiction in the New Mexico Desert (free to view or download from google books)

It concluded that the U.S. Army Air Forces, recovered debris from an Army Air Force research project code named MOGUL. It was met with derision in the world of ufology and the debate continued whether the explanation was just a further cover story.

Also In 1994 a TV movie was produced featuring all the lore.



In August 1995 the infamous Alien Autopsy Video was released worldwide. Allegedly genuine footage from 1947 of an alien being dissected.



But it has long since been exposed as a hoax. Spyros Melaris having admitted to having produced the footage.

In 1997, the 50th anniversary of the Roswell incident, a further air force report—“The Roswell Report: Case Closed”—offered up an explanation that stories of alien bodies may have come from civilian witnesses seeing crash test dummies, a severely injured airman parachutist, and charred bodies from an air crash during the 1950s. But fading memories had confused them.

It did not convince the hardcore believers that this wasn’t more obfuscation from the US military and government.

Colonel Corso’s book “The Day After Roswell” was also released with some interesting claims as the Roswell story reached mythological status.



In the 21st century there have been numerous books, documentaries, podcasts and even fictional TV shows and movies based around the story. With certain UFOtainers being particularly keen to keep Roswell in the spotlight. Roswell has become a small industry all of its own.

Analysis of the ‘Ramey Memo’ produced some interesting if inconclusive results a decade ago.

Then there was the Roswell Slides fiasco in 2015. Last year we passed the 75th anniversary. The rollercoaster never stops.

When I first saw this Unsolved Mysteries show, it was compelling viewing. But those were different times. Some witnesses appeared to have conflated their stories. Cross-checking of information could be difficult, expensive and often impossible for researchers and those seeking to validate witness claims. Some of the information presented back then has since been shown to be inaccurate.

Despite the Mogul explanation, there has been no absolute consensus of what happened. There probably never will be. But any irrefutable evidence for something unearthly landing in New Mexico in 1947 has never been forthcoming.

Thx for the OP….

Especially the coordinates……I’ve always wanted to Google Earth it. It certainly has roads nearby to get access from.

As I have come to experience from past hunting of crashed military aircraft…there’s always bits and pieces to be found long after the event. I can almost bet that piece’s of balloon payload/UFO craft, had fallen off the vehicles leaving the area…..pieces along the road that have yet to be found.

👽

a reply to: Ophiuchus1

It's an approximation of the possible debris field on that map. There's supposedly two or maybe three potential crash sites!!

This was one of my top 3 Unsolved Mysteries episodes for a long, long time.But I only had a casual interest back in my young days. So I tended to accept what was on TV without much question. Treating it all as entertainment first. Things were actually more fun back in those days.

Because we all should pay attention to whats shown on TV...Theres one thing TV shows are all about and thats ratings.Its all written and scripted to achieve the goal of getting more people to watch the show.More views equals more money in sponsorships and advertising.
A 5 second Google search gives you the exact coordinates to the crash site.
Site photos

a reply to: Blackfinger

Well OK.

But why are you accepting that as correct?

originally posted by: Ophiuchus1
Thx for the OP….

Especially the coordinates……I’ve always wanted to Google Earth it. It certainly has roads nearby to get access from.

As I have come to experience from past hunting of crashed military aircraft…there’s always bits and pieces to be found long after the event. I can almost bet that piece’s of balloon payload/UFO craft, had fallen off the vehicles leaving the area…..pieces along the road that have yet to be found.

👽

Well, does anyone in Texas not have a metal detector and ready for some adventure, I would.
Sadly I live on the other side of the planet.

a reply to: Spacespider

There’s the logistics factor which could be problematic i.e. access permissions and costs if it’s on private property..etc. nothing is free.

👽

a reply to: mirageman
a reply to: Blackfinger

Both locations are not all that far apart…relatively speaking.


👽

originally posted by: Spacespider
Well, does anyone in Texas not have a metal detector and ready for some adventure, I would.
Sadly I live on the other side of the planet.

Better get digging then. Watch out for big molen cores eh, and maybe give it a kick as you pass. I heard it's gone a bit wobbly or something.

And take a bottle of water, it's hot down there apparently.

Great work again, MM.

A personal quick summary:

On 14th June 1947, Brazel discovers a heap of tinfoil, rubber, and sticks that fell on his field. He ignores it, shoves it under a bush.

On 24th June, Ken Arnold witnesses 'flying disks' (or 'saucers' if we use tabloid mis-reporting).

On 6th July, Brazel wants the local reward for recovering an Arnold disk - so, having retrieved that heap of crap from 14th June, he reports it to authorities. The dates become necessarily warped to accommodate a narrative.

A weather officer subsequently confirms that Brazel found the remnants of a specific type of weather balloon.

NOBODY mentions 'ET' during any of these events - not even Arnold himself, nor the tabloids, nor the public. End of story. Indeed it WAS the end of the story until a Spielberg-drenched late-1970s inspired a whole new era of Roswell fairy-tales.

One recent discovery held out hope for ufology when Jesse Marcel's diary entries for the period in question were recovered. They revealed nothing ET-related. So ufology's explanation for the diaries? They were written 'in code'...

... and that's when I determined never to mention Roswell ever again. Until this thread of course, but the Roswell coffin-lid is well and truly nailed shut.

This is a good one. And on this one, believe it or not, I’m on the side of the US government.
I’ve researched the Dennis story and the mysterious nurse

It’s a very confusing story regarding the identity of the nurse. I’ll have to refer to the documentation to refresh my memory. What I do remember is the yarn is far from the truth. That the nurse who was supposed to have told Dennis about the alien autopsy.

Anyway, since it said the gov might reopen Roswell (won't that be a really big show) it's good we delve back into it.


www.roswellfiles.com...

originally posted by: Spacespider

originally posted by: Ophiuchus1
Thx for the OP….

Especially the coordinates……I’ve always wanted to Google Earth it. It certainly has roads nearby to get access from.

As I have come to experience from past hunting of crashed military aircraft…there’s always bits and pieces to be found long after the event. I can almost bet that piece’s of balloon payload/UFO craft, had fallen off the vehicles leaving the area…..pieces along the road that have yet to be found.

👽

Well, does anyone in Texas not have a metal detector and ready for some adventure, I would.
Sadly I live on the other side of the planet.

Roswell is in New Mexico. There are tours to take you to the supposed crash site; for a fee of course.
But actually the real crash site is closer to Corona NM and not Roswell. The land is privately owned by Ranchers and I don't recommend anyone trespassing. And yes I do have a metal detector and have found many anomalous objects, but at another supposed crash site near Aztec, NM.

originally posted by: Blackfinger
Because we all should pay attention to whats shown on TV...Theres one thing TV shows are all about and thats ratings.Its all written and scripted to achieve the goal of getting more people to watch the show.More views equals more money in sponsorships and advertising.
A 5 second Google search gives you the exact coordinates to the crash site.
Site photos

Copy that...
I have worked on many reality shows here in the land of enchantment. They're all BS made cheap, quick and dirty and just another platform to hang advertising on. This is the first one I ever worked on as a lowly PA and never got paid, But the lessons I learned working on it were invaluable to keep working in the biz. It's who you know!!!

www.youtube.com...

For now……I gotta go with the Brazel family statements and conclude with a balloon train of payload instruments debris field caused by open plains prevailing winds dragging and ripping, and shredding, and tearing off portions of the balloon train for some distance.




Start watching this episode from 28:25 (although the entire episode is worth watching)


And then there’s this…

And this


👽

NOBODY mentions 'ET' during any of these events - not even Arnold himself, nor the tabloids, nor the public. End of story. Indeed it WAS the end of the story until a Spielberg-drenched late-1970s inspired a whole new era of Roswell fairy-tales.

Exactly.Alien bodies were never mentioned till the 80,s (book?)..Then pretty much made it into every media outlet after that.Same with the mortician and nurse angle.

a reply to: ConfusedBrit

Indeed. The press had distorted Arnold's quote and created "Flying Saucers" little more than a week before Brazel went into Roswell with his story. But flying discs/saucers were not associated with "aliens from outer space" in the summer of 1947. The military was more concerned that this might be some Cold War spy trickery.

The seeds of Roswell probably lie with the fact that a reward was being offered for retrieval of a flying disc.

$3,000 was worth about $35-40,000 at today's value.



Had he left the pile of materials under a bush then we'd probably never have heard of the case at all.

originally posted by: Ophiuchus1

And then there’s this…

👽

Fiber optic cables - I don't think so

a reply to: peaceinoutz

The gist of it is was that a young military nurse, Naomi Self, saw an alien autopsy and drew a picture of a 'gray'. But it was a hoax concocted by Glenn Dennis. Dennis said the nurse was transferred to England and died in a plane crash. He was rather coy about revealing her name initially. When he finally did there was no record of her ever working in the military.

The "Morning Reports" that list all military personnel still exists for the Roswell Army Air Field (RAAF) for July 1947. They show that there were only five nurses assigned to RAAF during July 1947, and none of these were suddenly transferred to England or anywhere overseas. None of the nurses was named Naomi Maria Self, or had any name resembling that name. Thorough searches of the files in the National Personnel Records Center failed to find anyone by that name that had ever served in the military.

Source : www.roswellfiles.com...

Further details are given on Kevin Randle's blog : kevinrandle.blogspot.com...

I'd even question Dennis's original story about being asked for child sized coffins.

If the RAAF had really captured dead aliens would they necessarily be specifying 'child sized' coffins? This was potentially a serious biological hazard and the medical staff would need much more secure storage than your average coffin.

originally posted by: chunder

originally posted by: Ophiuchus1

And then there’s this…

👽

Fiber optic cables - I don't think so

Fiber-Optics was invented long ago…..that much is true.

How Fiber Optics Was Invented

However, after it’s discovery, it was developed in different ways for different purposes and commercialization in the public and government sectors.

Notice the fun fact underlining I have highlighted, specifically says “fiber-optic ‘cables’.

It is not a stretch to hypothesize that the Mogul team did develop “invent” their own long fiber-optics cables, from the fiber-optic technology or science at the time, and for their own purposes to run along the long lengths of balloon trains.

Think of how much lighter would the overall weight of a balloon train be if it didn’t use the weight of copper cabling to interconnect pieces of instrumentation payloads all up and down the length of the balloon train. Using fiber-optic cables would certainly have lightened the overall balloon train weight.

So then, to further hypothesis, the particular fiber-optics cables developed by the Mogul team could have been deemed classified secret hardware….and as such extra care would be used to safeguard those fiber-optic cables….if a balloon train crashed.

At the time and many years later…..the government wouldn’t have wanted, fiber-optic cables technology to fall in to the hands of our adversaries.

Consider it a black project ahead of its time at the time…….only for the public sector to catch up with fiber-optics technology many years, further down by it’s public “introduction” ….in 1970 to the world.

Imo…I could believe Mogul balloons had fiber-optic technology if for anything else is to prove out fiber-optics technology developments by the U.S. government.

We know now…fiber-optic cables for signals transmission performance is superior to copper cables when used in atmospheric conditions for aerospace, aircraft…etc.

Many inventions come from government contracted development. Some inventions shared with the world and some inventions not shared with the world.

👽